Friday, January 06, 2017

President-elect Donald J. Trump acknowledged the possibility on Friday that Russia had hacked a variety of American targets, including the Democratic National Committee, after an almost two-hour meeting with the nation’s top intelligence officials.

Mr. Trump asserted the hacking had no effect on the outcome of the election.

"While Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our governmental institutions, businesses and organizations including the Democrat National Committee, there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines. There were attempts to hack the Republican National Committee, but the RNC had strong hacking defenses and the hackers were unsuccessful," Trump said in a statement released after the session.

"Whether it is our government, organizations, associations or businesses we need to aggressively combat and stop cyberattacks.”

Trump then announced plans to appoint a team to look into cyber security during the first 90 days of his presidency.

(Personally I don't know why he simply does not call up Vlad and ask him how he did it and to please stop doing it.)

For their part the NSA, CIA, and FBI jointly released a declassified version of the report that Donald Trump, President Obama, and other key officials have just seen.

I found this part in particular rather informative:

We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US
presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process,
denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.
We have high confidence in these judgments.

We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-
elect Trump’s
election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him.
All three agencies agree with this judgment. CIA and FBI have high confidence in this judgment; NSA has moderate confidence.

Moscow’s approach evolved over the course of the campaign based on Russia’s understanding of the
electoral prospects of the two main candidates. When it appeared to Moscow that Secretary Clinton was likely to win the election, the Russian influence campaign began to focus more on undermining her future presidency.

Further information has come to light since Election Day that, when combined with Russian behavior since early November 2016, increases our confidence in our assessments of Russian motivations and goals.

Based on this, Trump's contention that these hacks had no impact is absolutely ridiculous.

Perhaps they did not hack the voting machines themselves, but they clearly hacked into the minds of the American voters and helped to shape their opinion of Hillary Clinton and the DNC.

And before somebody makes the claim that all the hacks did was reveal information about the DNC and Clinton which upset the voters, you must remember that these snippets of e-mails were constantly being misrepresented or exaggerated to the point where they often did not even remotely resemble the original source.

It took almost an army of fact checkers to go back and explain what the sensational headlines got wrong, but sadly the publications which corrected the lies rarely showed up on people's Facebook news feeds.

But as for whether the Russian hacks changed the outcome of the election I would go a little deeper, as far back as 2013, when a hacker named Guccifer hacked the e-mail of Clinton pal Sid Blumenthal.

Now though Guccifer, real name Marcel Lazar Lehel, was supposedly Romanian, his IP address was traced back to Russia.

Not only that but subsequent leaks came from a number of folks all using the pseudonym Guccifer 2.0. (I hardly think that is a coincidence.)

And those leaks have now been determined (Read the report) to have come from Russian hackers.

So if this first Guccifer was ALSO a Russian operative, that would mean that since it was from Blumenthal's e-mails that we first learned of Hillary's private server, which then of course inspired the GOP led congressional witch hunt, that also provided ammunition for James Comey's eleventh hour suggestion that Clinton might still be indicted, then that would mean that virtually EVERYTHING that damaged Hillary's credibility and undermined her character came directly from Russian directed hacking.

And yes, THAT most definitely impacted the outcome of this election.

In short this report should disqualify Donald J. Trump from being sworn in as our 45th president, because a hostile foreign government interceded to help him to win that title.

And America, the home of democracy, simply cannot let that stand. Period!

117 comments:

Somehow, I seem to remember that at one point or another, the RNC admitted that they were hacked, too, but nobody investigated that part, and especially the part that none of the info they got from the hacking was actually leaked...

Perhaps Russia is holding it over their heads. While Democrats are guilty of being liberal socialist progressives, and occasional adulterers, the Republicans' secrets are always unspeakable. They'll keep their mouths shut for Vlad.

That is what the pooty and rumpy would like you to believe. But America prosecutes liars that commit treason and espionage. We don't move forward until this is worked out. The Clinton's should file criminal charges against them along with the American people. And remove all connecting people from this country.

Despite all the hype, this new report is just a re-packaging of the prior claims - with again no evidence to back them up. Not even something like "signals intelligence said 1,2,3..". And half the report is about RT. And despite what the press and our elites are telling us, it's not proof. We're a democracy. The people in intel are our employees. The people in office were sent there to represent us. Don't blame Trump. The way this issue has been handled the start of the end of our freedom and it's squarely in Pres Obama's wheelhouse.

Eye roll. 1:53 sounds like the kind of person who, if a battered and pregnant friend came to the person's home seeking protection from an abusive husband, this so-called friend would tell the battered woman to go wash up and while she was in the bathroom this so-called friend would phone the husband to let him know his wife's whereabouts. This guy would have every right to know. And have every right to access to the woman and fetus. And there would be no proof shown that the man had been the one to beat the woman.

Of course it changed things. It was relentless. It was all about influence. And over time. And EVERY TIME THERE WAS A WIKI LEAK OR PIECE OF FAKE NEWS,Trump went all-in on trashing Hillary and turning something small or untrue into something huge that it wasn't and "true." He not only lied knowingly but absolutely created a monster out of each small piece of info, whether real, semi-real, or absolutely made up. He was a monster on the campaign trail and in his tweets and interviews. He insisted that everything bad said about Hillary was gospel truth and he just kept repeating it over and over again, even though he knew it was a lie. And of course he made up many of his own lies, like with the illness thing that he had people like Giuliani keep spinning. All these guys acted in tandem.

Anyone who can't see that there are different ways to throw an election besides changing the actual votes at a polling place is too stupid to waste any more time on. This is the type of person who would insist that a father didn't abuse his kid if he didn't break his bones and leave bruises. If he only berated the kid 24/7 for years and the kid lost all sense of confidence and self-worth and had a breakdown, developed any number of peculiar coping mechanisms, or even committed suicide, this person would say that it was absolutely not the father's fault.

The most hilarious part of this is that the die hard "don't tread on me" patriotic 'murikans that shit red, white and blue elected a man completely unfit for office because they were spoon fed their opinions and voting instructions from a bunch of folks that they until recently still considered "dirty commies".

The entire thing was a study in how easily stupid people can be manipulated by a barrage of "engineered news".

You weren't actually thinking that they were going to release the classified information after the stink you made about email servers for the past two years, did you? Or are you just unaware of the difference between a "public report" and a "classified briefing"?

2:24 the wife beater analogy has popped into my head time and again in regards to trump. For instance, why would a contractor who's been stiffed by trump accept another job from him? His minions believe, regardless of how often he breaks his promises, he's still Mr. Wonderful. He's gonna have to beat the living shit out of them before they come to their senses. Unfortunately, we're gonna get beat up too.

Half the report's about RT - our intelligence community shows their media analysis skills are fair to poor at best. If the analysis of the hacking, which we can't judge because they don't give any evidence, is as sorry as their media analysis, then this report is not very good.

OT. Wolf Blitzer is interviewing FLA gov. Scott by phone. When asked what else Scott is going to do, he said he's "going to pray, so that we don't lose another life." He used that "so." So, his praying is what is deciding who lives and dies. Okay.

It seems hardly surprising that reading comprehension is not one of Trump's strong suits.

Trump says:"...there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines."

What the report actually says about the impact on the outcome of the election:

"We did not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcome of the 2016 election. The US Intelligence Community is charged with monitoring and assessing the intentions, capabilities, and actions of foreign actors; it does not analyze US political processes or US public opinion." In other words, they aren't saying it did or didn't have an impact because they consider that conclusion is out of scope for the report.

What the report actually says about whether voting machines were tampered with:

"Russian Cyber Intrusions Into State and Local Electoral Boards.Russian intelligence accessed elements of multiple state or local electoral boards. Since early 2014, Russian intelligence has researched US electoral processes and related technology and equipment.

DHS assesses that the types of systems we observed Russian actors targeting or compromising are not involved in vote tallying.

In other words, we know they showed interest in the technology used at the local level, but we didn't actually observe them with their hands in the cookie jar.

Where I come from, saying you are not expressing an opinion because it is out of scope is NOT the same thing as saying your opinion is there was no impact. And saying you don't have evidence of interference in vote tallying is NOT the same thing as saying that it's a fact that there was no tampering with voting machines.

Indeed, if we follow the patterns Trump has shown us, the fact that he specifically made the claim about no tampering with voting machines makes it way more likely that there actually was.

If I worked deep cover Intel, I would b nervous as he'll. Cheney had no problem exposing Valerie Plame and destroying the work she was doing. Donnie will probably call his best pal Puttie on his first day in office with the identitles of all our agents in Russia.

I guess Trump does not understand espionage at all. Someone should read some John Le Carre novels to him. Maybe the stories could be divided up into 140-character tweets. I don't think Trump's reading skills are very good. Beaglemom

Governor said he reached out to Trump and Trump said whatever you need let him know.

Reporters started asking the Florida governor did you reach out to President-elect Trump and he said yes.

ReporterS started questioning the governor did he reach out to President Obama and he said no.

I believe they asked him why not? The governor (stuttering) said let's not make this political.

What in hell did the governor just do?

Why? Trump is not president until January 20th

CBSFlorida Gov. Scott Says He Called Trump, But Not Obama, After Fort Lauderdale Airport Shooting

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (CBSNewYork) — President-elect Donald Trump does not take office for two more weeks, but Florida Gov. Rick Scott said he talked with Trump – and not with President Barack Obama – after a shooting left five people dead at the Fort Lauderdale airport.

“I have reached out to President-elect Trump, and spoken to him and to Vice President-elect (Mike) Pence multiple times to keep them informed, and they told me whatever resources that we need from the federal government, they would do everything in their power to make that happen,” Scott said at a news conference late Friday afternoon.

Reporters later asked whether Scott had talked to Obama. Scott said he had not talked to the current president and said Obama had not reached out to him. He said he had not reached out to Obama either, though he had reached out to Trump and Pence multiple times.

A reporter later asked, “Wouldn’t it be appropriate to call the president for resources?”

“I have a personal relationship with Vice President Pence and President-elect Trump, and I reached out,” Scott said

You forgot to mention as the reporters questioned Gov Scott about not reaching out to President Obama, the governor started stuttering and the governor's handler cut the interview off. So obvious, help me handler help me.

Let me educate you on the Russian hacks and Wikileaks releases. The bottom line is Russia's actions constitute an Act of War and nothing less. If you don't react then step aside and let a real leader lead. You have Failed!

I would ssy it changed things. If an outside govt tried to interfere then that candidate is disqualified. Why are we even having this viteing mess go on with this fat turd? We the people have voted in Hillary!!!!!

The one issue I still can't reconcile about Russian hacking is Why did Comey release the Clinton letter? Isn't he working with Russia, then, too? If the FBI knew Russia was attempting to influence the outcome of the election, why did Comey help them along? Can anyone answer this?

8:22. OK, so if the Russians have something on Comey, why was he dispatched to Trump Towers to present the intelligence evidence to Trump? Why not send another head of agency who has not been turned by Russia? Comey should be in the Hot Seat right alongside Trump.

The Florida shooter was not an Alaskan but was an Alaskan guard who flew from Alaska. He's an Iraqi vet.

Cue Sarah Palin's fake outrage and blaming President Obama.

Cue Sarah Palin as she brings up Track's violent issues, his divorce, his Domestic Violence, losing one child and about to lose another on President Obama. But she won't bring up Track was violent as a youth.

Scott, a Republican, said he had “reached out” to President-elect Donald Trump and vice-president elect Mike Pence several times. “They told me that whatever resources we needed from the federal government, they would do everything in their power to make that happen,” he said.

I'd have to go research, but I recall Scott being PO'd because after he hadn't done a thing for the FLA everglades and environment and had denied climate change, he was suddenly begging the fed govt to bail out FLA and was denied. Finally, earlier this year Scott got his state govt to set aside funds for restoring the everglades.

Ahhh yes..... The Russian hacking if it occurred, did such a marvelous job of discrediting Clinton that she only received the second highest vote total in the history of American Presidential elections. But since she didn't receive 100% of the votes, it must be assumed that this changed the election results. No one in their right mind would vote for Trump or any third party candidate.

Funny but the result I see is, Clinton won the States she made an effort to win for the most part and lost where she didn't give them the time of day. Her strategy was flawed.

I am convinced that, had a proper recount been done in the four states under debate and Florida, the electoral result would have changed and Hillary Clinton's popular vote count would have increased. Beaglemom

"Based on this, Trump's contention that these hacks had no impact is absolutely ridiculous."Pres Obama said the same thing. In an interview with ABC this afternoon that the Russian "meddling" - that was his word for it, he used it a number of times - didn't affect the outcome of the election. Don't you trust Obama when he tells you something is so?

President Obama has the unenviable task of holding this country together and ensuring a peaceful transfer of power to Donald Trump.

Simply put the President CANNOT say that this orange motherfucker colluded with a Russian dictator to steal this election from the American people.

However I am bound by no such constraints, and I have no qualms about standing on a mountain, with a megaphone, and shouting that "THIS ORANGE MOTHERFUCKER COLLUDED WITH A RUSSIAN DICTATOR TO STEAL THIS ELECTION FROM THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!"

And I will be doing so until he either dies in office, is impeached, or serves out his term under a cloud of distrust.

Do you have any other unbelievably ignorant questions or can the grownups go ahead and continue their conversation in peace?

My feeling is that somehow, someway, there was collusion. And it may have been by "courier." I've been hoping that some in the intel biz, like Malcolm Nance, would be able to find some kind of evidence.

Ivanka vacationed with putin girlfriend. Bristol vacationed with marina and the cozy Russian singles. Mining rights. Renting and selling property to Russians. several cabinet members with direct consulting connections. The list grows if you dig. freakin Frack for it. Flush it out.

I agree completely with Gryphen. Either the president-elect is a traitor or he will be harboring traitors in his administration. Not a pleasant thought just a couple of weeks before he will take office. Will he have his fingers crossed (can he do that) behind his back as he takes his oath of office? I suspect so.Beaglemom

Wow. Thanks. Today's the first time in a long time that I've missed Rachel. I was planning on watching the repeat of the show tonight. It's insane how Trump just keeps denying things. Fox, I saw earlier, was just saying that this hacking talk is about the Dems thinking they can still overturn the election. CNN wasn't saying much b/c of the FLA shooting, and whenever there's a tragedy they tend to be unable to give other issues the time they deserve. On a Friday, when important news can go unseen, it's important that people speak up. Good for Rachel.

Minor point, but I noticed Trump is adhering to the Republicans' habit of calling the Democratic Party, the Democrat Party, when he announced that the Russians had hacked the "Democrat National Committee". What an asshole.

Could be, even, that this guy, Carter Page, has something to do with things. Trump prefers not to use email. This is his buddy who deals with Russia. Stories came out in Sept. and of course he called it all hogwash, but we need to look around to see who, besides obvious Manafort, could have been involved:

drumpf "who encouraged a foreign power to interfere with the 2016 presidential election to his benefit, and who views the basic tenets of American democracy with contempt. By implication, those people who voted for Donald Trump and who have not yet disavowed him are traitors as well." To ask the future or present victims of Donald Trump to empathize with his supporters is MORALLY perverse.""when social trust is weakened and people are isolated, they try to find ways to belong, to be part of a community. The Tea Party is one such community. Others turn to their church communities. Their social brains seek an experience of “we” and often do so by creating a fantasy of a “them” that they can devalue and fight. "Trump’s voters made a MORAL decision. They chose to support a candidate who is a clear and present danger to American democracy and to the core values of our pluralistic, multicultural and cosmopolitan society. In the spirit of “personal responsibility,” these people must be held accountable for their decision." REAP WHAT YOU SOW...

Exactly. I give no break to any Trump voter. Their vague claim of "change" and "jobs" allowed them to not have to think about all the reasons not to vote for him. They willfully ignored the facts. Or they thought about these and still voted for that criminal thief and assaulter. Either way, fuck em.

I also lump the third party voters in the same group as the Trump voters. i'm so sick of hearing that "I didn't like either candidate so I voted third party," always said with a faint smirk.

We have an educated friend who is quite a rigid Republican whose sole worry in the world in the "national debt<" which I doubt he understands at all. Now that the debt could increase by a trillion dollars with the slashing of the ACA, I wonder how he feels. Oh, and he's a retired doctor. No consideration of the likelihood that so many people will become uninsured as a result of the GOP's attack on the American people. They all belong in the "deplorables" basket.Beaglemom

More information must be released and it must be forced onto FOX NO news station. That one station have denied their followers important news regarding this issue and more. FCC should come down on that rag national enquirer spreading shit at grocery lines. This is pathetic and trump and putin must be held accountable for the damages.

The report does not attempt to gauge the effectiveness of the hacking and propaganda campaign at all, as the intelligence community does not see that as their job.

However James Clapper did say this during that Senate hearing:

"Clapper said that the hacking did not succeed in changing any vote tallies, but that it was impossible for intelligence to assess how the information released from the breaches affected voters' attitudes."

I contend that it changed those attitudes quite dramatically, which I think should be obvious to anyone who paid attention to this campaign season.

TWEET TWEET playing a fucking game in his mad mind!"Gross negligence by the Democratic National Committee allowed HACKing to take place," Trump said on Twitter. "The Republican National Committee had strong defen$e!"

Our fox only friends and relatives did not hear about hacking, rigging or the 12feet tall audit from sea org. They were instruct to only trust the fair and balanced station. The likes of glen beck, o riley, limpballs, hackberries, graham, santorectum....makes ya wonder? who are these people and why would they allow Russia to invade America?

So this Russian infiltration managed to mind control the working class in the Midwest and the rust belt, the same voting block that had been coincidentally ignored by Hillary the entire campaign, and by Obama the last 8 years..... Yet the Russians decided to allow Hillary to win California and New York handily with huge vote counts. Those Russians are good eh?

TodayTraitor president elect but not elected trump is saying it is all the fault of the DNC, that the RNC was not hacked therefore better. His only concern is about himself.

What makes me angry is the media is wasting our time “analyzing” why trump won’t admit the russians influenced the election. Not one has mentioned the fact he has business interests in russia and we have no idea what he “owes” putin and the russian banks. Also I still find it strange that Ivanka vacations with putin’s girlfriend and no one blinks. If Chelsea had dinner with putin’s girlfriend the republicans would be calling for a senate investigation.

He also said that after the briefing, he taught the heads of the intelligence agencies something. HA HA what an ego. I just hope they didn’t give him access to HOW they collected all this info because it will be in the hands of the russians as soon as he gets out of the meeting.

"President Obama has the unenviable task of holding this country together..."

So when Pres Obama says the Russian "meddled", that's completely true and accurate. But when he says it didn't affect the outcome of the election, he's fibbing for the good of the country.

Fascinating: you give yourself the privilege of choosing which parts of this you'll believe with no supporting evidence, even when the president you respect says it, but others expressing skepticism are trolls.

Oh I read the report. This is about the ABC interview with Obama in which he said Russia "meddled" but it didn't affect the outcome of the election. He said that, and he has the compartmented Top Secret report.

Gryphen claims Obama is telling the truth about the meddling, but that he's fibbing about it not affecting the outcome of the election because he has to protect the country or somesuch. Up until now, Gryphen has defended that all of what's been reported and opined by the IC and others who've seen the evidence of the Russian hacking is the complete truth because they say so. He calls people who express skepticism 'trolls'. Yet when it suits Gryphen, it's fine not to believe and say Pres Obama is lying.

There's a word for having one standard for yourself and one for others.

About Me

This blog is dedicated to finding the truth, exposing the lies, and holding our politicians and leaders accountable when they fall far short of the promises that they have made to both my fellow Alaskans and the American people.